When the knocking came, Maud was taking a sponge bath. (first line of "The Cost of Lunch, Etc.") - Marge Piercy

If you have contempt for people and think they cannot know what they want and need, who the hell is the revolution for?

Poetry changes with every generation, but it does not improve or progress. It just changes its styles, trappings and some of its obsessions, but we can still enjoy Sappho and Homer; they are today's news as much as when they were written or recited.

"I used to wonder what I did wrong. But now I think that unless you grossly mistreat a child or spoil her or let her be injured, basically there's a given element in all of us, something from genes or the moment. From birth on, a child follows her own path. She learns, but she also unfolds from within." (Malkah, twenty-eight: HOW CAN WE TELL THE DANCER FROM THE DANCE?)